“I don’t want someone else! I want Guy to do it!”
Detective Tran opened the door, his gaze sweeping over us as if he’d been drawn by our raised voices. “Time’s up. Let’s go.”
Steven handed me his truck keys as the uniformed officer escorted him out. I followed them to the door, freezing at what I saw waiting on the other side of it. A crowd of neighbors had gathered along the street and in their yards, gaping at the police cars and lights. Stacey was huddled with a group of the neighborhood moms, all of them whispering behind their hands, but I was sure that wouldn’t keep the gaggle of kids they’d brought along from hearing them.
Riley and Max stood front and center of the crowd, their phones held up in the air, recording Steven as he was escorted from the house. The wordsaffairandmurderrolled like a wave through the crowd.
The door of my house opened across the street. Vero appeared on my front stoop. She held Zach on her hip, and Delia clutched her leg. One of Delia’s friends called out to her in a high child’s voice. “Delia, why are the police taking your daddy? Did he do something bad?”
Delia’s eyes welled with tears. My heart cracked as her lower lip began to tremble. She buried her face in Vero’s sweater as her father was led down the driveway by a procession of cops. Steven clenched his jaw and stared at the pavement, unable to look at our children as the whispers of the crowd grew louder.
Vero must have read the horror on my face. She ushered Zach and Delia quickly into the house.
Detective Tran opened the back door of a police cruiser. A few of the spectators applauded as Steven was escorted inside. Engines started and blue lights swirled as the police cars left Mrs. Haggerty’s house, one by one.
CHAPTER 6
Thirty minutes later, my kitchen looked like the receiving line at a funeral. Vero had called my sister in a panic as soon as the police cars had swarmed Mrs. Haggerty’s house. My sister had called our mom. My sister’s girlfriend, Sam, had called Nick. Nick had called Joey, and just when I thought we couldn’t fit one more person in my kitchen, Javi and Ramón had come bursting into my house wielding crowbars, determined to save us from some unspecified danger after they’d heard the police broadcast our street address over the scanner at the garage.
The only people who hadn’t yet shown up at my house were Steven’s parents and his sister, and I had no intention of calling them. The only call I’d made since Steven had been carted off by police had been to his attorney, and since Guy was practically family to the entire Donovan clan, I didn’t imagine it would take long before they all heard the news. My only comfort was that none of them lived within easy driving distance of South Riding.
I scooped up Zach as he raced past me, once again wearing no pants. I handed him to Vero. She passed him to my mother. Mymother passed him to my father, who held Zach at arm’s length, unsure of what to do with him.
“Why won’t he keep his pants on?” my father asked.
“Probably something to do with the apple and the tree. Too soon?” Vero asked when my sister shoved her.
My mother took Delia’s hand. “Come on, Paul. Let’s take the children to the park so the grown-ups can talk.” She kissed my cheek and whispered, “When we get back, I’ll have Vero pack their overnight bags. The kids can spend the night with us. I’ll keep them as long as you need. You have enough to deal with right now.”
“Thank you,” I whispered back. She gave my shoulder an encouraging squeeze and led my children and my father out of the kitchen.
“So let me get this straight,” Javi said when the kitchen fell quiet. “The dude stepped out on his pregnant wife, messed around with the dead guy’s woman, then lied about it when the cops asked him if he knew them?”
Ramón shook his head. “He sounds like a first-class tool.”
“You have to admit, it doesn’t look good,” my sister said to Nick.
“I can’t believe he’d do something that stupid,” Sam said.
“I can,” Vero and Georgia said in unison.
“What now?” Vero asked. Everyone turned to me, as ifIshould know the answer.
I left the room, sick of the gossip and speculation. If they all knew so much about my former husband, let them figure it out.
Joey talked on his cell phone as he paced in the living room. He dropped his voice when he noticed me listening in the foyer. “How long?… Are they filing charges?… Who’s lead on the case?… What have they got?”
I grabbed my coat off the rack and walked out the front door, suffocating under the sympathetic looks everyone was giving me.The crowd had finally cleared from the street. Only a handful of stragglers remained, chatting on a neighbor’s porch.
A car stereo thumped in the distance, the bass growing louder as it came into view. I squinted to see who it was as the car rolled slowly toward my house. There was no way Steven’s sister could have made it here from Philly this fast. Mrs. Haggerty was due back from her book club any minute, but I didn’t imagine any of her friends listened to their music loud enough to wake the dead.
I cringed when the squared-off hood of an ancient-looking sedan cruised toward my driveway. Cam sat proudly behind the wheel. Mrs. Haggerty was riding shotgun. Neither of them looked as nervous about this as they should have as the front tire of her Lincoln Mark V rolled up over the curb and then bounced back down onto the asphalt. Cam put the car in park, reaching around the massive wheel and jamming the lever into place. Grinning like an idiot, he wrenched the stiff turn crank on his door. When his window refused to roll down farther than an inch, he rolled it back up and heaved open his door.
The hinge creaked as he flung it wide and got out. He looked at the car like it was a thing of wonder. “She’s a beauty. Am I right?” He ran a loving finger down the length of the rusted hood. “We picked it up from the police impound lot. They said we just needed a licensed driver to sign for the keys. I guess it was leaking some oil. They were so happy to get rid of it, they didn’t even charge me for the damage to the fence.” He used his sleeve to wipe a few fresh scratches in the paint. “Those gates just aren’t wide enough for such acommandingturn radius. Right, Mrs. H?” He turned to find she was still sitting in the passenger seat. “Oh, shit, sorry!” He scrambled around the front of the Lincoln and opened her door. He called out to me over thesmoking hood as he helped her out of the car. “Mrs. H said if I take her to her meetings and stuff, I can drive it when she’s not using it.”
A cloud of foul-smelling fumes wafted from the engine, and I waved it from my face. “I’m surprised it still runs.”
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Haggerty said. “In my day, things were built with sturdier stuff. They don’t make cars like they used to. This one will probably outlive you!” At the rate I was going, that wasn’t really saying much.
